The American League Baseball Club 1901

Every one has his or her "thing".
A specific subject of intrest that is interesting no matter where discussions about said, "thing" might be found.
For me, it's music, for my husband it's sports.
There may be 4 seasons where we live but there are only 2 seasons on his personal calendar, Hockey and Baseball.
He's come home with stuff like this before, he's got a signed 8x10 glossy of some late 60's ball player who retired from baseball to become a dentist and while shopping for groceries one day happened to cross paths with the only guy on the face of the planet that would recognise him for reasons unrelated to the practice of oral maintenence and hygine.
I forget the guy's name and after the excitement of tonight's Red Sox game (as seen on TV), Michael is snoozing on the couch and I haven't the heart to wake him just for the sake of my blog.
(Stay tuned tho,
If the slugger dentist played local, I will post more about him later.)

Anyhoo...

Much in the same way that I find myself with a growing collection of bootleg tapes, tshirts, and tips on good bands to check out, Michael finds conversations with total strangers that lead to him walking away with sports stuff of intrest to him.
Our neighbors are having some work done on their house and Michael was standing in the driveway chatting with the guys doing the work when it came up that Michael had dressed up
the back of our house to look like the original American League scoreboard.
He invited the guys working on our neighbors house into the back yard to check it out and go figure, one of them happend to have a copy of this neat little bit of history tucked into his pick up truck just in case he ran across someone who might find it as interesting as he did.
Kind of in the same way that someone who really likes an up and coming band will have a few extra copies of thier favorites latest or rarest to spread the word.

No matter what your "thing" may be, I find it endlessly interesting to talk to people who are passionate about any subject no matter how boring I may personally find it.
I have really tried to understand baseball, I'm just an abysmal failure at grasping the excitement that others seem to find in it.
No matter tho,
I am crazy for history and in that,
Michael and I can both get equally as excited for this new addition to the photos in our basement sports bar:

Frog Pond Blues

Walked past the frog pond one evening last week and was surprised to find it littered with signs alerting all that the pond was closed.
I guess I can kind of understand where the city is coming from on this but the uncomplicated simplicity of the pond was/is a key element in my memories of it from growing up.
Sure, when I was a kid I was told I had to look out for shards of glass while "swimming" in it and maybe most days it wasn't as sparkling clean as it seems to be now but one didn't need to wear a bathing cap to keep one's hair out of the pool filter like at most other public pools and heck, you didn't even need any proper bathing attire at all if you only happened to have what you had on on hand...
My friends and I enjoyed many fun afternoons and evenings in our teens roaming through the park and frolicking in the pond.
(A particularly memorable time being in the middle of one of a great late night summer rainstorm, and before any one chastises me on the dangers of lightening and standing in a body of water during a storm, if you had been there for the loveliness of the whole evening, you would have done the same thing. There were other little gaggles of friends of the same mindset there as well so, I know the night, and the pond, tempted other normally more rational people as well.)



Anyhoo....

I was surprised to find the pond still closed the following morning:

I guess the city really is, at heart, trying to beautify the area and make it more touristly hospitable as this new addition clearly attests (note the signs in the pond) :

Can't say I don't miss the simple pleasures tho, back when fun ruled the day and regards for personal safety came in a distant second.

I'm quite a bit older and unfortunately a lot more sensible than I used to be but whose looking out for the teenagers? The ones on their way home from Rocky Horror in Harvard Square in the middle of a refreshing summer rain storm? Or the ones simply to broke to have other stuff to do on a sunny afternoon?

Let's hope for thier sake, that they temporarily forget how to read the signs....